Broncos GM John Elway passes on QB as draft finishes

Denver adds several other pieces to its offense

Broncos general manager John Elway said he still has confidence in backup quarterback Paxton Lynch. (AAron Ontiveroz / The Denver Post)

The Denver Broncos pulled off two trades on the final day of the NFL draft, adding a pair of late-round picks to finish the weekend with 10 drafted players.

But the Broncos did not select a quarterback. Perhaps that was a surprise to outsiders, given the intrigue surrounding this year's quarterback group. Yet that omission, general manager John Elway said, serves as a vote of confidence for third-year pro Paxton Lynch.

"We're not kicking him to the curb," Elway said of Lynch. "We think he can still develop. When we drafted him two years ago, we knew that it was going to take some time."

Lynch will compete with Chad Kelly, a seventh-round pick in last year's draft, for the backup job, Elway said. Those two, along with newly signed starter Case Keenum, will be the only quarterbacks participating in mandatory organized team activities beginning next month.

That presents another opportunity for Lynch, whose career has been marred by injuries and shaky play since being drafted in the first round in 2016. He's played in five games (four starts) over two seasons, completing 61.7 percent of his throws for 792 yards, four touchdowns and four interceptions. Trevor Siemian beat Lynch out the past two seasons for the starting job. The Broncos signed Keenum last month following a stunningly productive 2017 season with Minnesota, which he helped lead to the NFC championship game.

Instead of picking a lower-tier quarterback, Denver addressed several other offensive positions to add playmakers and depth around Keenum. The Broncos took wide receivers Courtland Sutton (second round) and DaeSean Hamilton (fourth round), running backs Royce Freeman (third round) and David Williams (seventh round), tight end Troy Fumagalli (fifth round) and offensive lineman Sam Jones (sixth round). The Broncos hope those pieces, along with the newfound stability of Keenum behind center, will jumpstart an offense that ranked 27th in the NFL in scoring last season at 18.1 points per game.

Other themes gleaned from Denver's draft? Wildy productive college careers mattered to Broncos officials. Freeman is Oregon's all-time leading rusher, Hamilton is the top pass-catcher in Penn State history and fourth-round pick Josey Jewell racked up at least 115 tackles in three separate seasons at Iowa. Elway also emphasized taking "quality people," a group peppered with seniors and team captains.

"The one thing that we learned last year," Elway said. "When you're 5-11 and you're on a losing streak, you need that maturity and that leadership to get things turned around. These players have that ability ... that's why we decided to go more that direction."

Denver entered Saturday with two fourth- and fifth-round picks, but none in the sixth and seventh rounds. They changed that with two trades, flipping fifth-round selections with Seattle to acquire a seventh-rounder and dealing a second fifth-round pick to the Los Angeles Rams for two sixth-rounders.

But the extra picks did not yield a quarterback. And Elway is fine with that, given the confidence he still holds in Lynch.

"Obviously, (the draft) never falls perfect for you," Elway said. "But we're excited about the way it did fall."

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